by Sara Whitney
Probably.
Her eyes cut over to the strong lines of his face, and she shifted at the thought of what bringing Aiden up to her apartment would actually be like. Then something sharp jabbed her in the butt. “Ow!”
She arced off the seat and groped around until she found the culprit: an earring.
“Um. Yours?” She held it out to him, all dangle and sparkles in the watery light of the parking lot, and he had the good grace to look chagrined.
“Yeah, no.” He plucked it from her palm and dropped it into the cup holder. “Sorry about that.”
The physical reminder of Aiden’s playboy ways was what she needed to get her sorry self out of the truck. This night would definitely not end with him following her up to the fifth floor. She sighed and started to shrug out of his jacket.
“Give it back on the house tour.” He reached for his seat belt. “I’ll walk you up.”
“No!” He’d called her kid not ten minutes ago. No need for another reminder that their night would end with nothing more heart-racing than a platonic handshake. “It’s eight feet to the entrance, and you can see the elevator from here. Thanks though.”
He shrugged and tapped the steering wheel, and she slid out of the truck, praying that she’d stick the landing.
“Okay, thanks again!”
“Night,” he said. Then, “Hey!”
She turned quickly, heart in her throat and hoping for… What? That he’d invite himself up?
“You got a tire guy?” he asked. “For your car?”
She blinked. Right. Her car. “Uh, no.”
He nodded. “I’ll text you my guy’s number. Tell him I sent you.”
“Oh. Thanks. Again. Um, good night.” With an awkward final smile, she slammed the door shut and hustled inside, grateful for the warmth of his coat and the brightness of his headlights until she was safely on the elevator. As soon as the doors dinged shut, she dropped her perky-girl act and sagged against the wall.
For better or for worse, she was the one woman in Beaucoeur that Aiden Murdoch never even considered going home with.
Two
Aiden Murdoch woke up on Saturday morning, alone in his bed and with a clear head.
Still a little weird, but it was all part of the plan.
He rolled over and blinked up at the ceiling, frowning when he noticed a crack that had appeared in the far corner near the wall. The heir to Beaucoeur’s premiere construction and renovation business couldn’t possibly let that stand.
He added it to the day’s mental to-do list, then rolled out of bed and headed for the bathroom. The mirror over the sink confirmed that the tan he’d picked up on his beach vacation last month had mostly vanished under his usual February-in-Illinois pallor. Unlike most Saturday mornings over the past several years, his eyes weren’t bloodshot and he hadn’t kicked aside a used condom wrapper on his way across the room, but his expression was grim, and his hair was shaggy and in need of a cut.
“You’re killing it,” he muttered at his reflection before turning away from the mirror.
He snapped on the shower and contemplated stepping under the icy water before it’d warmed up, just to shock the self-pity out of his system, but steam obscured the gray-and-black-tiles almost immediately thanks to his beast of a water heater. Masochistic shower foiled by good home maintenance. He stepped under the spray and let the hot water drum away every other thought for a few minutes before he soaped up, rinsed off, and toweled dry, glad he’d dropped the money to install heaters in the new bathroom flooring. No one living in Beaucoeur would regret warm tiles under their cold, wet feet in February.
Twenty minutes later, he was dressed and behind the wheel of his truck, on his way to his buddy Dave’s with a travel mug of coffee riding shotgun. His phone dinged with an incoming email alert, and he immediately turned it to silent. Not even weekends were safe from some new work crisis. A promise his dad had made to a client but forgotten to tell him about or some new backhanded dig from his perpetually pissed-off brother. It would all be there waiting for him on Monday.
When he arrived at the Chiltons’ two-story brick house, Dave opened the door before Aiden had a chance to knock. His friend resettled his glasses on his long nose. “Rough night?”
“Late night.” Aiden stepped inside and shrugged off his jacket. It was the one with the varnish stain on the sleeve since Thea had his good one. He’d basically had a whole conversation with her eyebrows last night because the rest of her face had been swaddled in his far-too-big coat.
“Late night, huh?”
Dave’s speculative tone made him bristle. “Nothing like that. Thea Blackwell had a flat, so I helped her out.”
“A flat in that cold last night? Poor kid.”
Unexpected heat twisted in Aiden’s stomach. “I wouldn’t call her ‘kid’ to her face.”
Knowing Thea’s porn preferences shouldn’t be that weird. Knowing that she watched porn at all shouldn’t be that weird. She wasn’t the eight-year-old living across the street anymore. Still, the thought of Thea, all wholesome pink cheeks and perky smiles, typing in search terms and hitting Play on a video while her hand crept down to her—
“You with me, dude?”
Dave’s words jolted him back to reality, and he self-consciously cleared his throat. “Yeah. Yep. Let’s hit that last wall.”
This was his third weekend in a row helping Dave finish his basement to turn it into a playroom for his kids, and Aiden took a great deal of professional pride in the fact that the work was right on schedule. The last of the drywall would go up today, they’d spend next weekend painting, and then Dave could move in whatever furniture the kids might want to destroy just in time for his wife to give birth to Chilton Child Number Three.
“Actually,” Dave said as he weaved around the toys scattered across the living room on the way to the basement stairs, “I was wondering if we could focus on the bathroom today. Ana’s been complaining about how dingy the floor in there is, so I’d love to put down something fresh.”
Aiden almost tripped over an abandoned toy fire truck that Dave had neatly sidestepped, and the wail of the little electronic siren followed them as they descended the basement stairs. He could lay tile with his eyes closed, but the timetable he’d built for the project didn’t account for bathroom work. Time to treat Dave the way he would a client who made a suggestion that didn’t quite fit inside the project parameter: with a winning smile and a polite misdirect.
“How about we finish up the walls today, then I’ll take measurements and shoot you some flooring options on Monday for you to consider?”
“Sure thing. You’re the expert,” Dave said easily.
He started shuffling his schedule around in his head as he and Dave laid out the drywall supplies. If he swung by some night during the week, he could get started on the paint job, which would open up some time next Saturday for the tile while still keeping the end date on track. He was supposed to meet his buddy Daniel at the gym after work on Tuesday, so maybe Wednesday would work to start painting. Yeah, that could be good.
“So you really didn’t pick up a girl after the show?”
Aiden’s mental schedule rejiggering slammed to a halt. Christ, this again?
“Really.” His fists clenched around the drywall screws in his palm.
“No offense.” Dave gave a typical laid-back shrug. “I just figured if you were going to backslide, it’d happen on a Moo Daddies night.”
“That makes two of us,” he muttered, snatching the electric drill as he braced for yet another conversation on this godforsaken topic.
Aiden had spun through his twenties on a merry-go-round of women who hopped on and off with ease. But a few months ago he’d shut the carnival down entirely. Not like he was looking to settle down, but he’d faced the fact that he needed to stop sleeping around for a bit to focus on the family’s construction business. As a bonus, it might make him the subject of a little less gossip around town. But fast, easy, no-
strings sex was a hard habit to break, and he’d be lying if he said he hadn’t been tempted to go back to his old ways once or twice or ten times.
“No backsliding, no hookups. That’s the plan.” He said it out loud, more as a reminder to himself than anything else.
Dave smirked as he grabbed the next sheet of drywall. “Your legions of fans will be devastated.”
Aiden just grunted and was saved from further conversation on the topic by the arrival of Dave’s extremely pregnant wife hauling an overstuffed laundry hamper behind her.
“No, no, I got it,” Ana announced as the hamper bumped down each step in her wake. “Really, Aiden, what man leaves his pregnant wife to deal with mounds of their children’s laundry all by herself?”
She hit the bottom of the steps and slumped dramatically against the wall, resting a hand possessively on her belly. But her eyes danced as she looked at her husband, and Aiden bounded forward to play his part.
“A monster, that’s who.” He grabbed the handle of the hamper and dragged it the rest of the way to the washing machine. “Dump him and get with me. I’ll carry anything you want. I’m very strong.”
“Hear that, husband?” Ana twined a strand of hair around her finger and batted her lashes. “I’ve got other offers.”
Dave pulled her in for a kiss. “Go back upstairs and put your feet up, woman. We’ve got this.” He sent her on her way with a butt pat, and Aiden pointedly focused on placing the next sheet of drywall while Dave started on the laundry.
A hard knot of jealousy lodged in his throat. Not because he was in love with his friend’s wife or anything, but they were so… happy. Settled. Comfortable. They were a team, and for all that Aiden had great parents and good friends and an important role in the family business, he’d never had that kind of partnership with someone else, that ease and familiarity.
Staying single was a choice he’d actively made years ago. He’d dutifully majored in construction management at ISU and even dropped his music minor in favor of business, like his dad wanted. He’d started his career at Murdoch Construction the Monday after he’d graduated from college, and he’d never complained that he’d been groomed from day one to take over the business someday. But he’d drawn the line at marrying some nice girl way too young, the way his brother had. Sleeping around and staying unattached was his single act of rebellion, and he didn’t regret it. His life was great.
Sometimes though. Sometimes a tiny part of him did wonder if he was missing out. Wondered if he even had it in him to be a boyfriend, husband, father.
“Hey. Lazy ass.” Dave’s voice snapped him out of his impending spiral. “I’m not paying you zero dollars to stand around daydreaming.”
“I’m gonna start charging you by the insult,” he warned as he picked up his drill and got back to work. By midafternoon they hit a stopping point, so Aiden packed up his shit, bid farewell to the Chilton family, and headed to the hardware store to grab the joint compound he’d need to fix the crack in his bedroom ceiling. Anything to keep his hands and his mind occupied so he wouldn’t be tempted to backslide into “fuck first, ask questions later” territory. Sticking to the plan was easier when he filled his time, which usually wasn’t hard. He had Moo Daddies gigs. He met up with his buddies at the Tenth Inning for pizza and beer while they watched whatever sports were in season at the time: Cubs, Bears, Bulls, Blackhawks. Hell, he even kept up his volunteer maintenance work for a handful of nonprofits around the area.
But tonight was wide open, and as he left the hardware store with his purchase, the siren song of the familiar started up in his head. It’d be so easy to head to a bar or call up one of the handful of women in his phone who had no expectations of him. It’s how he’d spent his weekends for so long that it felt weird not to. He could text Paige, or maybe Jen. One of them might—
His phone buzzed as he slid into his truck.
Thea: Does the offer still stand?
For a split second, the question confused him. God, what had he promised her? And then he remembered the run-down house and Thea’s nervous face as she asked him about it. Why nervous though? It had bothered him at the time, how tense she was in his car and how reluctant she was to ask for his help. He tapped out an immediate response.
Aiden: Of course.
Thea: Is this afternoon too soon? Like in half an hour?
Perfect. A house-walk-through distraction would keep him from making bad choices.
Aiden: Sure. Meet you there.
He tossed the phone on the seat next to him and started to put his truck in gear, then notched it back into park and reached for his phone.
Aiden: Did my guy get your tire fixed?
Jumping dots. No jumping dots. Jumping dots again, and finally a response.
Thea: Not yet. He had to order a new one.
His thumbs started to work across the phone, but he abandoned that in favor of just hitting Call.
“Um, hi!” She sounded surprised to hear from him—fair, since he himself was a little surprised to have called her—yet her voice remained as chipper as ever.
“And how are you planning to get to the house if your car’s still at Troy’s shop?”
“Beaucoeur has Lyfts,” she said in the friendliest duh, idiot voice he’d ever heard.
“Oh, for…” His eyes rolled skyward, and he put the truck back into gear. “Sit tight. I’ll be at your place in ten minutes.”
“You don’t have to—” she was saying as he disconnected and pulled out of the parking lot.
He found her waiting in the glass entryway of her apartment building, his coat folded over one arm. As soon as he pulled up, she practically skipped out to join him, hauling herself into his truck cab with a tiny bit of thrashing.
“You didn’t have to pick me up!” she said by way of greeting, settling the jacket between them and adjusting a fuzzy scarf around her neck.
“Such an imposition. I was all of three miles away. Just a nightmare commute.”
She wrinkled her nose at him. “I didn’t mean to hijack your whole afternoon.”
“I don’t mind.”
“Really?”
Again the surprise. It rankled. “Really. Why would I mind?”
“I mean, we’re not friends.” She studied her thumbnail as she said it, not meeting his eyes, which was just as well. It meant she didn’t see his chin jerk backward.
“We’re not?” He ignored the tiny sting her words caused.
“Come on, not really.” She sounded exasperated, which was only slightly preferable to nervous. “We say hi when we bump into each other. We chat when our mutual friends all get together. But we don’t do this.” She gestured around his truck, he guessed to encompass “go places together” or “intentionally hang out.”
“I suppose you’ve got a point.”
The smile she gave him was a lot less perky than usual. “We rode bikes together when we were kids. Then…” Her half smile vanished, and she swallowed hard before continuing. “Then Mom and I moved, and I didn’t see you again until high school.”
He was aware that a chasm of pain lurked beneath the details she’d skipped over, but if she wasn’t going to address it, he sure as hell wasn’t going there. “You were a freshman when I was a senior. It would’ve been a little weird if we’d hung out after all that time.”
“Well that. And by then you’d turned into—” Rather than finish the thought, she waved a hand in his direction.
“Turned into…?” The smart part of him didn’t want her to keep going, but the masochistic part of him was dying to hear her description.
“You know.” Her smile was back, tart as ever. “Adonis Aiden.”
He groaned as he turned his truck in to Prospect Point. “Don’t tell me she got to you too?”
“Who, Mabel? The bestower of great nicknames?” She bounced in her seat. “She sure did, Adonis!”
“Dammit,” he muttered but without any heat. Busting-his-chops Thea was preferable to nervous Thea a
nd far preferable to sad Thea. He brought the truck to a halt in front of their destination. “Friends or not, we’re here.”
Three
She was parked in front of her dream house, but Thea couldn’t tear her eyes off the man behind the wheel. Aiden’s too-long brown hair curled against his neck, and his cheeks and nose were pink from the cold. With the playful tilt of his lips and the crinkles at the corner of his eyes, he could star in a commercial promoting the healthful benefits of brisk midwestern winters. Women would move here in droves.
She’d been flustered ever since she’d heard his voice on the other end of the phone, so much so that she blurted out all that nonsense about their nonfriendship. Like he cared about any of that. Get your shit together, Blackwell. He was just a man, after all. A nice, handsome man with big, capable hands that dwarfed the steering wheel.
Okay, thinking about his hands wasn’t helping. And now she’d been sitting there silently for far longer than was normal, and her stupid brain wouldn’t cough up a single thing to say that wouldn’t make her sound like an idiot.
“Realtor’s not here yet.” See? Idiot.
Thankfully, the charisma machine next to her just grinned and slouched back in his seat, his eyes traveling past her to 201 Prospect Point with its steep pitched roof and light-colored stone-and-timber exterior. “So talk to me while we wait. Why is this the house for you?”
Here was a topic she could warm up to. “I just… I love it so much.” She sighed. “It’s like the scrappy kid sister to all the other houses in the neighborhood.”
Prospect Point ran along the bluff overlooking the Illinois River, with the city’s grandest homes on one side and a glorious view of the river valley on the other. The majority of the houses were either intimidating palaces built a century and a half earlier by the city’s founders or they were recently constructed monuments of glass and sharp angles built after the new owners bought the less-desirable homes on the street to knock down.